The two batches of chutney I made earlier (one by myself and one with Steph) have had long enough to mature, so I cracked them open for a taste today. They're good. Not too vinegary or too sweet, nice thick texture and a complex flavour. Surprisingly they both taste pretty much the same, which is odd because they have totally different ingredients. I guess chutney just tastes like chutney, whatever you make it from.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Chutney Tasting
The two batches of chutney I made earlier (one by myself and one with Steph) have had long enough to mature, so I cracked them open for a taste today. They're good. Not too vinegary or too sweet, nice thick texture and a complex flavour. Surprisingly they both taste pretty much the same, which is odd because they have totally different ingredients. I guess chutney just tastes like chutney, whatever you make it from.
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6 comments:
You say you used the same ingredients - did that include the spices? If the spices are largely the same, I've found you get much the same flavour regardless of the vegetables you use.
Hello, Stonehead. That's interesting. I can't remember what spices we used. I know there's different vinegar, different sugar and of course dfferent veg in them but they just might have the same spices. That would explain it.
Yeah, spices. I was sayng to Mel that the only noticably different chutney i make is mango, which is very simple with ginger & chillis. Any suggestion on simple spice combinations to pep up the chutneys in future. I'd love to make a tomatoe chutney some time, but I don't grow em myself, and the flavorsome ones cost a mint and the cheap ones taste of nothing.
Enough of this about tyre pressures, just look at the attached photograph. Now isn't that the epitome of beauty, intelligence and musical ability? (O.K. I know I'm biased but isn't it the truth, isn't it the truth?) Dad
Stonehead's Rules of Chutney:
1. Keep it simple. Two, three or four spices at most, the minimum of sugar (but not too little) and good quality vinegar.
2. A long, slow reduction is better than a 10-minute boil. The long reduction concentrates the flavours and reduces the vinegary taste; a short-hard boil means the overwhelming taste will be vinegar.
3. Use only the very, very best fruit and veg, and use them as fresh as you can get them. (Straight from the garden is best - allowing for cleaning and preparing of course!)
4. And don't be afraid to go out on a limb. I had an over-abundance of radishes and mint one year, and a Punjabi friend suggested mint and radish chutney. He didn't have a recipe and couldn't remember all the ingreidents so I made it up (mint, radishes, green chillies, onions, and lemon juice, plus the usual vinegar and sugar). It was delicious but, as it turned out, not much like the inspiration!
Thanks, Stoney. That's really useful. We did the slow reduction thing, and it seems to have done the job.
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